Tilt
by Aoife Malfoy
Summary: HPDM Slash. AU. PostHBP. War fic. When the world tilts, there is nothing else you can do but fall.


**Title:** Tilt  
**Author:** Aoife Malfoy  
**Pairing:** H/D  
**Genre:** Angst  
**Rating:** PG-13 for language  
**Beta:** None. It's also 3am so this is bound to have little stupid mistakes. facepalms  
**Warnings:** AU. Post-HBP. War fic.  
**Word Count:** 1,404  
**Summary:** When the world tilts, there is nothing else you can do but fall.

You don't remember how it started really, just like you can't fathom how it could ever stop now. You try to fool yourself into believing that at the back of your mind, you always knew. It's a knowledge you think you have that's always been there but you just never acknowledged it. You think it's like the phantom pain of your scar or the lingering taste of death in your mouth. Something that's been with you so long, you almost forget that it's there. That's a lie though. For it hit you like a heart attack on an idle Tuesday. In fact, it hurt so hard and so fast your whole world tilted in a way that's left you desperately scrambling to right it ever since. Moreover, you found out in the most horrible shocking way that the truth does hurt like a son of a bitch.

You love him.

There's no other way to describe it. You hated him so much and for so long that when your feelings shifted, you hardly saw the difference. After all, nothing much has really changed. You still think about him obsessively, always trying to figure out what he's up to and where he's been. It's only when you angle your head to the side and squint really hard that you'd see the subtle nuances. It's not much but it's there and it's enough to force you into admitting its existence.

You don't want him hurt.

Well, that's not entirely true, is it? After all, you make him hurt without even meaning to and it always fills you with a perverse sense of glee that shames you the minute it fills your heart. But you can't help it. You have been unloved for most of your life and you take anything that would resemble it even if you have to do all kinds of head turns just to get a glimpse of it. Because the fact that your words matter enough to reach him, even if its only to cause pain, a part of you lives for that. Ironically enough, a part of you dies each time as well.

You don't like anyone else hurting him.

Now this would be a more accurate description. You loathe his father more than ever. A possessive clutch of his shoulder. A harsh shove of that cane. And it's enough to make you want to take that pretentious phallic symbol and break it over Lucius' head. You hate the way his father has stamped every inch of his body, from the poncy clothes, long platinum hair to that aristocratic posture and branded him as Malfoy's. You ache for the day when you can claim him for yourself but instead of doing it aesthetically, you would mark him from within with searing kisses, soulful moans and deep thrusts until he forgets all else and the only thing he's capable of remembering is your name.

However, you do nothing.

Not a single little thing to change his mind, to tip the scales into your favor and tilt the balance back up again. You don't offer him comfort when you see him crying his eyes out in the prefect's bathroom, looking so young and lost that you're tempted for more than the usual few minutes to seize him and never let go. You don't hold back on the routine insults even when you know his is only for show because his heart is too troubled to be truly into it. It will not matter in the end anyway.

Your love will not save him.

How could it? It didn't save Sirius. It didn't help your parents. It didn't aid Dumbledore in the slightest. It hasn't rescued anybody from anything. And you know that your love while bright, shiny and _good_ will not be enough. It never was. The dark will not tremble in the face of its light. History will not repeat itself. His hate will not shift into love.

You're sorry.

You feel this way for so many things but it is for this shortcoming that you feel it the most. You may not have been able to save countless others who were more intimately acquainted or at least friendly with you, but it's his damnation that you lament the most. It twists your insides and it haunts your dreams. Until even in your waking moments, it's all you can think about. The funny thing is he will never know the amount of pain he has unwittingly caused you.

This is why you slowly grow to hate him again.

For you know that even if you find someone else who is everything he is and more, you know you wouldn't even give that man a second glance. Because no matter how sweet, kind, or gentle that person might be, he'd still be missing one important thing. He wouldn't be Draco.

And you hate him a bit more.

Because you figure out too late that he's the kind of person that people never get over. He's the kind of man that other lovers get compared to and you know that no matter where you turn, look and search, there would never be another that can even hold a candle to him. He also does this without even trying or knowing and that makes the hatred return all the quicker. However, it's not enough to blind your love and on days like these you pray to the gods that for once their aim be true and their strike hit its mark. Maybe then this torment would end.

But the gods never listened to your pleas.

Not when you were three and you were praying for someone to love and certainly not now that you're seventeen and wishing for your beloved to love you back. It's probably why it is you that has found him now. On this first day of open war, you stumble upon him in the shadows. His wand is out. He has always been cunning and alert. You face him in battle, knowing that you could never harm even an inch of that pale skin. You're not prepared to kill him so you get ready to die.

You both raise your wands. Your eyes meet and you freeze.

Because you saw in that moment, when his cruel grey eyes met your bright emerald ones, an emotion that you've seen before. And the minute you recognize it, you're immediately astounded by the sheer depth of your own stupidity and ignorance that it shakes your very foundation. Then your world tilts again. Your eyes widen in shock. You want to scream, curse, kill and hurt something all at once. Your mind barely registers it when his master calls him and he leaves. You're still frozen inside the crystallized moment when it was all made clear.

He could have loved you.

It was there in his eyes. A quiet mourning for something that he's never had but has lost all the same. Something that made looking into the mirror of Erised pale beyond comparison for this was what true desire and regret looked like. And it hurts more than when he was cold and unattainable because now you know that there was a time he could have been yours.

You could have saved him, but you did not.

The tears come fast and furious now. More violent than the stirring storm clouds in the sky, more painful than any hex he could have given you. You slump into the shadows he's departed from and then you hurt, you cry and finally you break until there are no more pieces left. They come after you then with protection spells, soothing words and a portkey. They don't ask about what happened. You suspect it's because they don't want to know. After all, a prophesized savior should not break down in the middle of the war and so they avert their eyes away from the evidence of your weakness. Instead, they coddle you and you bask in their stilted love until you are once again ready to do your job. For in the end that's what they wanted. It's what they all wanted. So you go and do what is expected even though it didn't matter much anymore.

Because you may be the hero in this story and you may be able to save the day, but you know that at least for you, there will be no happy ending.

_Finite._

**AN:** Like it? Hate it? Tell me! Comments are love! So are new friends btw!


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